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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009941" data-attributes="member: 1129">Raw Recruits starts off strong but goes south quickly.  The book boasts some fantastic starting interiors of full color illustrations on slick paper with highly packed pages of information that help set the stage for the adventure itself.The module includes maps for the Evaarstanza, the exploration vessel that the party has joined.  It includes maps of the Explore-class ships the Midnight Angel and Evening Star (same map as it’s the same ship), interludes that can be placed between primary missions to help expanded the module beyond its original purpose, and several potentially interlinked adventures.The players are members of the ship and are working for the half-dragon Mercucio who has a hidden agenda that he will slowly reveal to the players.  The only problem is that the reason he needs the characters is that the old crew he had died while investigating this issue.  Now either that first crew was really terrible at what they did and Mercucio is no judge of character or they were really good and Mercucio is no judge of character. The adventures start off at 1st level with Aftermath, a standard exploration mission on the world of Komanis where the party is detecting a power source on this supposed dead world.  Excellent use is made of different skills to check for knowledge of the planet and the information varies depending on the skill used.  The PCs are dispatched to the planet and get to meet the locals, both friendly and hostile and role-playing has just as much impact as roll playing here.  The party even gets to test its mettle against a young dragon, but the advantage of technology should enable even a 1st level party victory.The section ends with the major NPCs, organizations, and help in determining the experience point awards for the section.  These things can help make the small adventure into a much larger experience as the GM can use the motivations and details provided to extend the duration of the adventure well past a single session.  The help with the experience points is a little more tricky though as it provides rough guidelines only and two different GMs running Raw Recruits may have one party end at 2nd level and another end at 3rd level.  Such is the nature of the beast though.The good news is that this sets up a fairly good method for the other adventures.  The reason why the characters are doing the mission, what happens, and guidelines to help move the plot along.   There is a lack of advice on how to scale the adventures themselves though.  In some cases its in the front of the adventure and provides brief details like increase X by 1 for every level, in other cases, it’s in the back and provides ideas on how to change the encounters for higher and lower level parties.For example, Ancient Factory, while relying a bit more on puzzle solving and exploration than hack and slash and role playing, still has a set up that can be used either as part of the Raw Recruits campaign or a separate set up with some reasons why the players would be investigating the factory.  Those running the Raw Recruits get a little more benefit though as the adventure includes several bits of information regarding the crew of Evarstanza, which can help bond the players more closely to the crew with card games and background details.  This pattern of expanding the crew to tie in closer to the PCs is done in all the sections and provides a tighter weave for GMs capable of playing multiple NPCs.  Newer GMs might be a little overwhelmed by the amount of characters and their different backgrounds.The other adventures, Freighter 237 and The Dead Cannon, continue to use this format.  Introduce the party members to the problem, offer alternatives, the adventure, a wrap of including NPCs, and monster stats.  Internal art varies from good to average with fan favorite Marcio Fiorito providing a lot of material as well as Chad Sergesketter, Rob Thomas, Ed Bourelle and Alan Dyson.  Maps are crisp and clean but lack a map key often.  Fortunately the text clears any issues so this is a non-problem.Raw Recruits has some flaws.  Among those are the terrible changes in layout and the use of justification for the alignment.  Whole sentences of one word are not a good thing, especially when it happens often.  The layout changes text size often and this makes the book very ugly in some spots. The blank page for notes is also a waste in a product with initial color illustrations on slick paper.  Heck, I question MEG’s use of the slick paper.  It’s nice to have the credits on two pages but two pages of slick paper?  I don’t like it when other companies use a page for intros and another for credits and I certainly like it less when the paper being used is glossy. It makes this a product with a lot of internal contrasts and makes me wonder not if the product if overpriced, but if it should’ve been a smaller page count with a better layout.  The organization is troubled in several places, like putting information on the crew on the slick paper and then their stats latter on, repetition of the same information for no good reason.  Another problem is with the design of the module itself.  Even though Dragonstar is a fairly new campaign setting with little published material, especially in the forms of adventures, a module starting off at 1st level probably isn’t the best way to start things.  I say this because there are many common, and a few uncommon, races in the Dragonstar setting that are more powerful than standard first level characters.  Thankfully there are notes on how to sale the adventure but these are brief snippets instead of detailed recommendations.The organization needs some serious rework too.  For example, Appendix I has new monsters and templates so we get the Dead Cannon Zombie Template, the JggHul, (an insect that creates slaves), and the Infected Host, but the new race, the Asharin, are in the front part of the module without a standard monster block.The module does provide solid entertainment and will give players a nice taste of the setting.  The four adventures can be strung together with some additional background information to make for a wonderful starting campaign. Poor layout and a heavy focus on the campaign setting though, potentially cut a lot of the module out and while still useable as four separate adventures, is not in the same rating as the campaign itself.</blockquote>

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